The nights are torturous for Daniel Rodriguez. Body twitching, mind racing, he's transported back in time long after the battle has ended. Once again he's surrounded by gunfire, a rocket-propelled-grenade flying past his helmet. He relives the devastating moment his best friend dropped to the ground, as a single bullet took his life. He can feel, smell, hear everything, until he is torn from his sleep, covered in a cold sweat.

The 24-year-old former Army infantryman calls them night terrors. They are brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury from an RPG attack in Iraq. And there's only one way he knows to cope every day.

"I just translate that into the gym," he says, "and into the weight room. And I force and funnel it all through when I play football. It just comes out."

The next battle for Rodriguez is nothing like the two wars he's been through. But he's motivated just the same. Every day is a grueling ritual of lifting weights, doing hundreds of push-ups, dips, sit-ups, pull-ups, running sprints and routes -- all in the memory of the band of brothers he lost. All in the hope to fulfill a promise to do something extraordinary with the rest of his life.

there is a lot to recruiting a player that recrootniks don't look at or evaluate that BMFP does. that's all it boils down to.

like what?? what is it Petrino does that recruiting evaluators don't?? you mentioned some shit (where your peak is, whether you can handle not being the supreme athlete), I disputed it (because no one could evaluate those things--not even the athlete), and you didn't have a response. I'm just supposed to take it in faith now??

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take a look at your average nfl roster, stocked full of kids from no-name colleges. it aint because they turned down big-time programs. its because big-time programs did not properly evaluate the recruits. Starkville, willie roaf was just elected to the pro football hall of fame. he played hs ball in arkansas and his biggest scholly offer was to UCA.

This is irrelevant. The paper I cited--and the position I'm maintaining--talks about the accuracy of recruiting rankings for wins and rankings IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL. Unless Arkansas somehow starts playing in the NFC South or some shit, I'm not going to be worried about recruiting rankings vis-a-vis the NFL. I don't know or care how those rankings turn out for NFL wins, HOF inductions, Pro Bowls, or any of that shit. NFL scouts have the benefit of far more information than the CFB couternparts, seeing how they perform in the most demanding football environments the players are allowed to be in. It's not fair to blame recruiting experts that they can't predict if a 17 year old will make it in the NFL when the players they're evaluating aren't developmentally mature psychologically or physically (as they will be by the time NFL scouts get a look at them).

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about 20% of the can't miss 5-star prospects never even get drafted, that's a pretty big fricking margin of error for "experts" that spend 40 hrs per week 50 weeks a year evaluating high school talent.

1) this is irrelevant for the same reasons I've already mentioned.

2) God knows where you're getting the numbers from.

3) even if you did just dream them up, don't they OBVIOUSLY OFFER SUPPORT FOR MY VIEW (and contradict the point you were just making above) you're saying that 80% of the time when a recruiting service ranks a player at 5-star they end up in the league? That is a remarkable rate! Especially when you consider that some of these guys pick up career ending injuries before the league, and that some of them are just the types of players that do well in college but not in the league, to say nothing of legal troubles and all that first-time-on-your-own-and-you're-a-star crap, how can you possibly think that is a large margin of error??? i'm not sure what the odds are of HS players making it to the NFL, but it must be worse than 1 in tens of thousands. And these guys can pick the studs, the can't-misses, and be right that they'll go on to be the one player in those tens of thousands 80% of the time? gtfo that's a large margin of error. Even 25% correct would be something.

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keep on being a dumbfuck, paying out your $9.95 a month to read a bunch of bullshit articles on rivals or whatever you hang your hat on, and believe whatever it is you believe.

i don't read, much less subscribe to, recruiting websites, don't care about recruiting at all until around January, and, to be honest, don't think i can name more than 5 or 6 of our recruits THIS YEAR without peeking.

what i do know is that observational studies, written by people with degrees, published in academic journals, therefore independently verified by referees with degrees, have shown that recruiting rankings significantly predict your future rankings and future wins. that's real evidence that the rankings get things right and are not worthless. you, on the other hand, claim that recruiting rankings are worthless (as useful as tits on a bull!) on the basis of the nonsense above, most of which isn't even relevant. i'll leave it to you to determine who is the 'dumbfuck' just 'believing whatever it is you believe'. it ain't me.

like what?? what is it Petrino does that recruiting evaluators don't?? you mentioned some shit (where your peak is, whether you can handle not being the supreme athlete), I disputed it (because no one could evaluate those things--not even the athlete), and you didn't have a response. I'm just supposed to take it in faith now??

This is irrelevant. The paper I cited--and the position I'm maintaining--talks about the accuracy of recruiting rankings for wins and rankings IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL. Unless Arkansas somehow starts playing in the NFC South or some shit, I'm not going to be worried about recruiting rankings vis-a-vis the NFL. I don't know or care how those rankings turn out for NFL wins, HOF inductions, Pro Bowls, or any of that shit. NFL scouts have the benefit of far more information than the CFB couternparts, seeing how they perform in the most demanding football environments the players are allowed to be in. It's not fair to blame recruiting experts that they can't predict if a 17 year old will make it in the NFL when the players they're evaluating aren't developmentally mature psychologically or physically (as they will be by the time NFL scouts get a look at them).

1) this is irrelevant for the same reasons I've already mentioned.

2) God knows where you're getting the numbers from.

3) even if you did just dream them up, don't they OBVIOUSLY OFFER SUPPORT FOR MY VIEW (and contradict the point you were just making above) you're saying that 80% of the time when a recruiting service ranks a player at 5-star they end up in the league? That is a remarkable rate! Especially when you consider that some of these guys pick up career ending injuries before the league, and that some of them are just the types of players that do well in college but not in the league, to say nothing of legal troubles and all that first-time-on-your-own-and-you're-a-star crap, how can you possibly think that is a large margin of error??? i'm not sure what the odds are of HS players making it to the NFL, but it must be worse than 1 in tens of thousands. And these guys can pick the studs, the can't-misses, and be right that they'll go on to be the one player in those tens of thousands 80% of the time? gtfo that's a large margin of error. Even 25% correct would be something.

i don't read, much less subscribe to, recruiting websites, don't care about recruiting at all until around January, and, to be honest, don't think i can name more than 5 or 6 of our recruits THIS YEAR without peeking.

what i do know is that observational studies, written by people with degrees, published in academic journals, therefore independently verified by referees with degrees, have shown that recruiting rankings significantly predict your future rankings and future wins. that's real evidence that the rankings get things right and are not worthless. you, on the other hand, claim that recruiting rankings are worthless (as useful as tits on a bull!) on the basis of the nonsense above, most of which isn't even relevant. i'll leave it to you to determine who is the 'dumbfuck' just 'believing whatever it is you believe'. it ain't me.

what i do know is that observational studies, written by people with degrees, published in academic journals, therefore independently verified by referees with degrees, have shown that recruiting rankings significantly predict your future rankings and future wins. that's real evidence that the rankings get things right and are not worthless. you, on the other hand, claim that recruiting rankings are worthless (as useful as tits on a bull!) on the basis of the nonsense above, most of which isn't even relevant. i'll leave it to you to determine who is the 'dumbfuck' just 'believing whatever it is you believe'. it ain't me.

i know a lot of people with degrees, undergrad, masters, and even some phd's and the majority are fucking idiots outside of their little area of specialty.

i know a shit load more about research, statistics, experiments, emperical data, and publishing in academic journals than you do. the results have more to do with how you set up the study than what you observed and reported. any study can be twisted to show pretty much whatever you want it to show.

all of that to say i don't give a fuck what your source says because it not any more credible than the national enquirer.

did the guy(s) who wrote that horse shit ever think that the rankings of the players are directly correlated and heavily influenced based off of who offered? maybe they got it backwards and winning programs offering recruits a scholly is more directly correlated to high rankings than the other way around. recruiting matters, recruiting rankings, not near as much. i'm not sure boise state has ever sniffed the top 70 in recruiting rankings, how does the paper explain their success?

don't answer that, I'm tired of seeing teh woopussy having to endure such pain and agony from reading dumbassery. hearing of a fellow woopigga going blind because he stabbed himself in the eyes with a fork to escape the dumbassery that I helped enable would make me feel bad.

After that 56-3 beatdown by Auburn Saturday he will be known only as Bert until he wins an SEC title. That is the only way he gets back in teh good graces enough to be called by the name his momma gave him.

did the guy(s) who wrote that horse shit ever think that the rankings of the players are directly correlated and heavily influenced based off of who offered??

I offer as support for your argument(not thatnitnis really needed) one Mr. Brandon Allen.Rated as a 2* forever because he committed early to Arkansas, asshat analysts saw he had no other offers, his dad is a coach here, he must not be very good, right? Suprise. He actually is.

I'm not sure how to spell this second example, but Dubble Are pronounces it Venn Ass-kah-leese-say. Fucking parade All American. 2*. Yep, obviously evaluated very well by the super alert eperts at Scout.fart and Rivals.

I heard it said the other day and it makes perfect sense. The 5* recruits are obviously the best high school players Available. The knock is that they possibly have already peaked. Some obviously haven't, but many have. That is why BMFP&Co. Trend towards players who are developing, perhaps have a huge upside, insteadof those who have possibly already been the biggest fish in the pond, and have no room for improvement.

I offer as support for your argument(not thatnitnis really needed) one Mr. Brandon Allen.Rated as a 2* forever because he committed early to Arkansas, asshat analysts saw he had no other offers, his dad is a coach here, he must not be very good, right? Suprise. He actually is.

I'm not sure how to spell this second example, but Dubble Are pronounces it Venn Ass-kah-leese-say. Fucking parade All American. 2*. Yep, obviously evaluated very well by the super alert eperts at Scout.fart and Rivals.

I heard it said the other day and it makes perfect sense. The 5* recruits are obviously the best high school players Available. The knock is that they possibly have already peaked. Some obviously haven't, but many have. That is why BMFP&Co. Trend towards players who are developing, perhaps have a huge upside, insteadof those who have possibly already been the biggest fish in the pond, and have no room for improvement.

I like the way the man thinks.It seems to = wins

BMFP pronounced it ASS-co-lease. Meh.

All good points, and the one that I think was the best argument against this shit is that the top-rated kids are also rated so high because they are so highly recruited by the better programs. They bring in those good talents and corch 'em up and turn them into studs. The rankings lag the program development a bit, so I'd expect that a program like ours that is doing nothing but improving will suddenly find itself with a whole lot of 4* recruits based solely on the fact that BMFP and co were hot and heavy on them and they committed to us. I'd bet that a good portion of those 5* studs were great because of where they played, and not necessarily the other way around.

I offer as support for your argument(not thatnitnis really needed) one Mr. Brandon Allen.Rated as a 2* forever because he committed early to Arkansas, asshat analysts saw he had no other offers, his dad is a coach here, he must not be very good, right? Suprise. He actually is.

That wasn't his point. They're saying he was rated extremely poorly up until, I think, the final evaluation when they finally got tape on him.

There's a level of disrespect given to Petrino "reaches." BA had no other offers, but Bobby Petrino made him his only QB commit. Bobby Petrino. It's like Saban finding a DB. Everyone would automatically assume the player was at LEAST a 3* and assign that rating without ever seeing film. That same rule doesn't apply to everyone.

The recruiting sites just don't have the resources to properly evaluate every kid.

Altee Tenpenny gets rated the #20 recruit in the country, #3 RB, and is a borderline 5 star player. He didn't play AT ALL this season. He rushed for 1100 and 15td's as a sophomore. Doesn't seem to add up does it? How they are so adamant that, despite this kid's very small sample size and injury history, he's one of the top 20 players in the country.

Looking over that list its amazing how there is only one guy from the state of Arkansas and of course he's committed to Bama

Yeah committing early to 'bama is pretty important because that way a player is assured of having a spot reserved for them and they don't run the risk of losing an offer if a better player comes along.

I offer as support for your argument(not thatnitnis really needed) one Mr. Brandon Allen.Rated as a 2* forever because he committed early to Arkansas, asshat analysts saw he had no other offers, his dad is a coach here, he must not be very good, right? Suprise. He actually is.

I'm not sure how to spell this second example, but Dubble Are pronounces it Venn Ass-kah-leese-say. Fucking parade All American. 2*. Yep, obviously evaluated very well by the super alert eperts at Scout.fart and Rivals.

I heard it said the other day and it makes perfect sense. The 5* recruits are obviously the best high school players Available. The knock is that they possibly have already peaked. Some obviously haven't, but many have. That is why BMFP&Co. Trend towards players who are developing, perhaps have a huge upside, insteadof those who have possibly already been the biggest fish in the pond, and have no room for improvement.

Makes me sick. I realize the kid grew up a Bama fan. Guess we didn't play enough games in LR.

I wish we'd gotten him too (and, who knows, we still might). But it's hard to recruit a kid that grew up a fan of a particular team, especially when that team just won a BCSNC. James is committed here, we'll be fine at RB if Tenpenny doesn't come around to seeing the light.

Yeah committing early to 'bama is pretty important because that way a player is assured of having a spot reserved for them and they don't run the risk of losing an offer if a better player comes along.

On the Hoof: His most prominent feature is his muscular powerbase and legs. His upper body is still a bit thin. He is not the tallest quarterback, but is taller than 6-1.

Needs Improvement: Add some upper-body strength. He is so accurate that he sometimes tries to force the ball into very tight spaces that most quarterbacks would never try. At the next level the defenders are quicker to react to the ball.

Most Impressive: His accuracy is as good as it gets for a quarterback coming out of high school. Allen has excellent touch and puts enough air under his fades that receivers can always make a play on the ball. He also sees the whole field and does not lock in on just one receiver. He can buy time in the pocket.

Conclusion: All quarterbacks should redshirt as they learn the offense. But I would not be surprised if he gets some looks as the backup quarterback early in his career. He is a very cerebral signal-caller that does all the little things well.

Most Impressive: His accuracy is as good as it gets Allen has excellent touch He also sees the whole field and does not lock in on just one receiver He is a very cerebral signal-caller that does all the little things well.